A terrible day.

A terrible day.

“I hate you as if you were one of my sculptures that I loved but could never complete. My eyes can’t bear your shape and my scalpel won’t touch you, I hate you but love you just as much as to never throw you away.”

Dear Mary,
You remind me that I never owned you because no one can own anybody, and not because the love between us lacked. But I am too old to understand a lot of things so I would still like to believe that I own some parts of you, at least the ones I gave birth.

Nakata was born exactly 2 years after you and in my fear of never neglecting you, I tried and loved you both just the same. However Nakata was the one who always rolled off the mattresses each time, I used to put him to sleep.

I remember driving you two to the Aragusuku Beach in Miyakojima on an extremely windy day, and Nakata fell sick. And you were the one who took care of him in the back of the year. This happened on the 22nd March 1978. By the time we reached home, Nakata was sleeping comfortably on your lap, while you moved your hands softly through his hair.

To make sure that I gave most of my time to the two of you, I barely left home and only crafted when you slept, on the room in the left of the first floor. I very vividly remember your enthusiasms when I first allowed you to paint on the canvas I once used for myself.

And in the small room, concealed within the four walls, your colors flooded everything that any eye could see. Now that you are gone, I fear that my room, that stands peacefully between the four walls is slowly contracting on its own. Smaller and smaller it grows and with itself, it tends to shatter the colors within. I live a little with each shared color. I belong to these colors.

But like every other tale that revolves around life, not all goes the way you want it to. And Nakata died in a car accident 7 months back, while you never turned up, your refusal to mourn Nakata’s death is only a sign of resentment, that’ll fade away, sooner than you might have thought.

Today, it’s his death anniversary, and yet I have more memories of him than of you. Not that I hate you, but not once have you come to meet. Maybe, this is why I was so happy to meet the postman, who told me about the letter that you wrote to me.

An hour after I received your letter, the phone rang, and I picked up, but the person on the other side had already hung up. Maybe it was you, or just some random stranger, who must have realized that he has dialed the wrong number. Despite this, I kept the phone to my ear, listening to the dial tone. At this moment, I am sure that I am not the same person I once was, while the real me continues to sit alone in the same room we once painted together in, watching in disbelief.

But I won’t trouble you for any longer than it takes me to complete this final painting I am doing. I must warn you that I am no longer able to keep up with you and neither has my art. I have grown tired and restless, and my hand shakes when I pick my paintbrush. I refuse to sculpt anymore.

With love.
Truly yours,
Your mother.

“All of us have painted our own beautiful words on the canvas, very precisely articulative of our dreams. But the one thing we forget is that the wind is strong and the sea turbulent. And colors fade away.”